


salt of cleigne

by burstaffinity



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29273622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burstaffinity/pseuds/burstaffinity
Summary: Insomnia is unkind.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum & Ignis Scientia
Kudos: 7





	salt of cleigne

**Author's Note:**

> headcanon-r-us

Sometimes he hears his own voice -- and he hates it.

He changed its cadence because he had to. The xenophobia of Insomnia wasn’t hard to miss among the chaos of trying to survive on the streets; all he had to do to invite a scowl was let out that Cleigne twang. That alone rendered him sub-human regardless of the fact that he was a suffering child with a mother who looked too thin to see the next day.

Once he had been stupid enough to believe the King’s approval would make the cruelty stop. That maybe the people in the royal court were different, kinder. Or at least they’d leave him the fuck alone when they learned he was a starving, freshly orphaned refugee _child_ from a territory Lucis couldn’t protect.

That was stupidity, pure and simple.

His new “uncle” didn’t prepare him for the laughter that responded to his introduction, nor did his “uncle” do anything to quell it. That night he cried, praying, _begging_ to any of the Six who would listen that the King would intervene in his favor -- but he knew in his heart what would greet him the next day. More laughter. More sneers. More derision. It didn’t matter why he was here or what he’d been through or that he was a child; all that mattered was that he wasn’t _from_ here, so he didn’t _belong_ here.

So he scrubbed every last hint of Cleigne from his voice, adopted the hoity-toity accent of the Court -- and started to resent the boy he would some day meet, the boy who didn’t have to worry about people laughing at his accent, whose tragedies the Court at least pretended to give a damn about. The Prince would be as useless as the King or as cold as his Court. Perhaps he’d be both. Ignis wasn’t at all impressed by the photos he’d seen of the runt whose only visual connection to royalty was the monochrome black of his clothes. Shorts and a hoodie, unkempt hair -- he probably cried about how much he hated official royal attire and got what he wanted. Rich kids always did.

The whole city mourned when the Queen died, but Ignis didn’t know where either of his mothers were buried -- _if_ they were buried. One fought in the name of a country that forgot her and left her widow to die of starvation. The only reason why their son got help was because he’d been recognized by one of the King’s elite: a member of an army formed almost entirely of refugees the King had created by his own lack of action. The King felt guilty enough about Ignis’s situation to make him the ward of a noble house; to this day, Ignis wasn’t sure if he felt any gratitude towards being ushered into a new kind of hell. The only thing he was certain of was that he’d been completely wrong about Noctis.

Studying had been among Ignis’s efforts to scrub away his past. The King had noticed, and generously bestowed upon the child a job. “It is the duty of the House Scientia to be advisers to the King,” his “uncle” had regaled him the night before he would meet the prince. “Take pride that the King has recognized you worthy of continuing this heritage.”

Ignis didn’t really care.

He studied for survival, and as his uncle droned on about a meaningless heritage, he was teaching himself a new skill: how to endure whatever new nightmare His Royal Brattiness had in store.

Except… that wasn’t what Noct was like at all, was it?

The King had introduced them with some pompous, dry speech, as the Prince stood sheepishly before them, hesitant to walk forward. Ignis held out his hand as courtesy ordained -- and then, everything had changed. The kindest smile Ignis had ever seen since leaving Cleigne, genuine in its warmth and enthusiasm. It wasn’t the smile of an employer or a liege. It was the smile of a friend. A fellow child.

That smile, that warm, unexpected smile, burned itself into Ignis’s memory, twinkled like a bright star against the bleak darkness of the night. Noctis _had_ turned out to be capable of being bratty, yes, but it wasn’t because he was spoiled. It was because he was trying to survive, just like Ignis, as being a Prince had not afforded him the sympathy and understanding of the Court, either. Certainly they had mourned the Queen, but only as a matter of formality. Noctis was expected to stop grieving once the Court declared the time of mourning to be over. He was expected to be the perfect Prince without ever having received any training to be such. Their circumstances weren’t quite the same, but Ignis understood what it was like to have such unrealistic, unfair expectations shoved upon him at an early age.

And so he determined, unbidden by the King or his “uncle”, to ensure that Noctis would never have to endure the same pain he did. That even if the world scorned Noctis, Noctis could at least rely on Ignis to have his back.

He only wished… he wasn’t so afraid to show his true self around Noct. To speak with his true voice, rather than this forced one he adopted to assimilate. Over the years he had trained himself to tune out his voice, to simply speak without ruminating on the circumstances that led him to adopt that accent. But sometimes, when he talks to Noctis, he hears his own voice. And he hates it.


End file.
